The spring of 2022 was rough for the US economy. Markets plunged while inflation spiked. “Stagflation” was the word of the day, and for a period of time, there was some merit to that outlook.

Homebuilders continue to finish homes faster than they’re starting new ones. Improved supply chains are allowing them to work through backlogs built up during the pandemic when they couldn’t keep up with demand.

We’ve been watching slumps ripple through various parts of the economy over the past 18 months: technology startups and stocks, regional banks and growing concern about commercial real estate. Yet we’re still waiting for the wider labor market to feel the downturn.

After 30-year mortgage rates surged past 7% in October, a decline to near 6% in recent weeks has made the start of 2023 look less awful than some had feared.

One of the main questions for the US economy in 2023 is how the trajectory of inflation will unfold.

For most of the past year, investment risk in the housing market has been focused on the for-sale segment.

Inflation was the bogeyman of 2022.

While remote work trends have persisted, recent data released by the US Census Bureau showed that more people were going back to the office in 2022 than in 2021 — yet the great southern migration hasn't slowed.

The Battery Belt is taking shape, and it’s creating a new economic development model where a college degree won’t be the ultimate qualification for jobs.

Surging mortgage rates have brought the housing market down from its giddy highs earlier this year.

The red-hot labor market is cooling. Monthly US job growth has slowed to around 270,000 from more than 500,000 at the start of the year.

There's a new twist in the fast-moving housing market with welcome news for renters: After an 18-month period of red-hot rent growth, the apartment market has turned ice cold over the past few months.

The past three years have shown us the downsides of depending too much on low interest rates, and how a better balance of fiscal and monetary policy can achieve a stronger economy.

Historically, soaring oil prices have been bad for the US economy because they squeeze US consumers and producers, and often are happening when the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to rein in inflation.

Right now, investors are getting worried because the yield curve has gotten very inverted — more inverted than it was in the lead-up to either the 2001 or 2008 recessions.

Slumping stock prices and slowing growth has the biggest technology companies — and investors — thinking about what it will take to reverse their fortunes.

If you had to point to one culprit holding back the economy over the past 18 months, it would be the auto industry.

Higher interest rates are no doubt causing pain to investors and consumers, but the economy has been able to handle them better than anyone thought possible six months ago.

As we approach the end of 2022, investors are hoping that inflation will fall in 2023 and lead the Federal Reserve to pause and perhaps reverse some of its interest-rate hikes. The looser financial conditions would then allow for accelerating economic growth and a better year for financial markets.

After a widely expected fourth straight 0.75% interest-rate increase next week, there's a growing view that the Federal Reserve will step down to a 0.50% bump at their December meeting.

Surging mortgage rates and uncertainty about the economy have put the housing market on ice.

Mortgage rates above 7% have put the housing market on ice as affordability challenges put off a lot of buyers. Newer, younger homeowners who locked in their mortgage at a low interest rate — and whose next move probably would be trading up — are content to stay where they are until mortgage rates fall.

The biggest puzzle in the US economy this year has been two straight quarters of negative real economic growth accompanied by booming job growth.

Trying to forecast inflation is a hazardous occupation when there's so much volatility in markets, supply chains and energy prices. But we can get some sense of where inflation is likely to go by tracking the profit margins of companies that make goods and services that go into the consumer prices basket.

While everybody's been sweating over the housing and labor markets, the office market has been streaking toward a hard landing.

The 2008 financial crisis created of a set of real estate winners and losers -- both at the household and geographic level -- based on how they were positioned in the housing market at the time.

Tuesday's hotter-than-expected inflation report pours cold water on the possibility of lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve any time soon, and by extension, the prospect of lower mortgage rates.

It's been three months since the elevated May consumer prices report led the Federal Reserve to adopt a "whatever it takes" mentality to fight inflation.

An improvement in buyer psychology is helpful, but what’s really needed is improved affordability, and the question is how we get that.

The stores ended up with too many goods that consumers didn’t buy as they shifted their spending to travel and leisure, or got squeezed by inflation.

From stagflation to cost relief in six months — that's the new picture of the housing market that has emerged in just the last few weeks.

The labor market is turning out to be a new source for optimism in the Federal Reserve's fight against inflation.

The labor market has come a long way over the past year.

Surging mortgage rates have finally cooled off the housing market. The cooldown, though, is coming unevenly, accentuating differences between the existing home market and new construction.

Wednesday's Federal Reserve meeting provides the clearest sign yet that the central bank is treating inflation as a national emergency, with markets expecting a 0.75% interest-rate increase.

It's been a tough job market for much of the past 20 years, making a grim landscape for workers and contributing to a world of haves and have-nots. Now the have-nots are finally getting their shot.

Reasons to worry about a recession are piling up: the Federal Reserve's inflation fight, a slowing housing market, warnings from retailers and venture capitalists and a smattering of layoff announcements.

The housing market has turned in the past few weeks. We're probably looking at a cooling-off period rather than something nastier, but both possibilities lead to the same conclusion for would-be homebuyers: Be patient.

The Federal Reserve has talked a lot about its goal of a soft landing for the economy as it raises interest rates to fight inflation, but there hasn't been as much talk about what that would look like for workers.

So here we are: When investors aren't worried about inflation, they're worrying about recession. Tech companies are announcing hiring freezes and job cuts in growing numbers. Homebuilders are starting to talk about slowing demand and the supply of existing homes is rising. Walmart reported this week that it has excess inventories.

Higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve's efforts to get a handle on inflation have contributed to the stock market's worst start to the year since 1939. That's bad news for investors, but the market signal being sent to corporate America is good news on the inflation front.

If you want to blame one company for the surge in inflation over the past year, blame Amazon. When e-commerce demand leaped at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the retailer decided to expand capacity to meet higher growth forecasts.

Add this to the pandemic lesson book: People may be willing to give up their homes in high-cost, densely packed coastal cities, but they still want their coastal lifestyles — just with a little more space, cheaper real estate and warmer weather.

The recent surge in gasoline prices suggests we might see a reversal in consumers’ years-long shift towards trucks or sports-utility vehicles back to more modest, fuel-efficient vehicles. But don't expect automakers to go along.

If you want to know what stagflation looks like, check out the housing market. The conditions that existed during the 1970's — high inflation and stagnant output — are happening already in this segment of the U.S. economy, illustrating the challenges ahead for consumers, industry players and the Federal Reserve.

There's understandably a lot of concern about inflation — and consumers want to know who to blame for it. U.S. companies are showing that they've got pricing power and know how to use it in this environment. That makes them an easy target for consumers — and politicians' — ire.

The surge in mortgage rates we've seen this year is making an already dysfunctional housing market even more uncertain. Higher lending costs will make housing less affordable, which should cool demand and at least slow price increases.

Cars have been a big part of the U.S. inflation picture over the past year. Since a computer chip shortage slowed production and drove up prices for new and used vehicles, fixing those supply chain problems in 2022 was supposed to normalize the market again, helping cool inflation more broadly.

News that the U.S. population barely grew this year, together with ever-falling birthrates and the decline in immigration, raises the possibility that the nation will be shrinking in the not-so-distant future. So fewer people should make housing more affordable for those looking for it, right? Well, don't get your hopes up.

Inflation debates have been dominated by fallout from the pandemic and economic reopening, most of which has been viewed as transitory: lumber and used car prices in the first half of the year, the cost of ocean freight more recently.